A group of people have allegedly tried to steal equipment from a TV show crew ahead of a live cross in Melbourne.
Nine’s Today show reporter Christine Ahern said she had been heading to Footscray early on Thursday morning to report on an overnight fire, with her camera operator having arrived on location first.
“He was there and I texted him and said ‘look, we’ve been to this location before, it’s a bit dodgy, you know, just be careful’,” she told Melbourne’s 3AW radio station.
“So he waited and he was just setting up the equipment on Nicholson Street for our first live cross and he’d just put out the tripod and the light stand where there was a group of locals.
“And they just picked up the equipment and decided to take off with it.”
She said the cameraman “quite bravely” approached the group before he was told “these are mine now” by one of the individuals.
With emergency services on scene at the time, Ahern said a firefighter had notified police after spotting the incident.
“And the cop’s kind of confronted them and managed to wrangle the equipment back, and we’ve packed up and taken off,” she said.
The reporter said she unsure what happened to the group of around six people.
SkyNews.com.au has contacted Victoria Police for comment.
It comes after a blaze on Nicholson Street that firefighters were called to at 10.25pm on Wednesday night.
“Firefighters arrived within five minutes to find multiple stores alight in a double-storey retail shopping strip,” a Fire Rescue Victoria (FRV) statement read.
An occupant was evacuated from the second floor amid a search of the building.
The blaze, which caused “major damage” to one shop and affected three other stores, would be investigated by FRV fire investigators, the statement said.